The death of Dennis O'Neill and expertise in a narrow subject

Becoming very knowledgeable about a niche subject is worrying, because you find much that has been published about it is wrong. And then it become more worrying, because you suspect this is true of every subject if only you knew.

One of my niches of expertise is the death of Dennis O'Neill in 1945. He had been fostered by a couple on a farm in the Stiperstones (that's why I first came across the case) and the trial of his killers shared the front pages with news of the last days of the war in Europe.

Now I've come across another example of someone getting things wrong about the affair.

Here's Professor Ray Jones, who's about as eminent as you can get in social work, writing in an article on the Maria Colwell inquiry of 1974:

Following campaigning by the local MP and the local newspaper, a public inquiry was launched.  At the time this was a new and novel response to a child’s death. 

A previous inquiry in 1945 into the killing of twelve-year-old Dennis O’Neil was undertaken by a judge in private and took four days.

The Colwell inquiry, however, was held in public...

But the inquiry into the death of Dennis O'Neill was not conducted by a judge. It was conducted by Sir Walter Monckton, who was a KC and soon to become solicitor general in Churchill's caretaker cabinet.

The Monckton Chambers website says of him:

Monckton served with great distinction as a soldier, then lawyer, politician and industrialist. As well as being recognised as one of the leading advocates of his day, he was adviser to Edward VIII during the abdication crisis of 1936, was appointed Solicitor-General in 1945, served as a Cabinet minister under both Churchill and Eden in the 1950s, and subsequently became chairman of Midland Bank.

So he was many things, but he didn't do any judging.

And Sir Walter Monckton conducted his inquiry in public and its proceedings were widely reported in the national and local press across those four days. You can see the start of one such report above – it's from the South Wales Argus for 12 April 1945.

Incidentally, the lack of cooperation between services that Sir Walter identified as a problem here has also been found by every such inquiry since.